Group-level emotions

• Group members make group-based appraisals and thus experience group-level emotions.
• Group-level emotions direct and regulate outgroup-directed judgments and behaviors.
• Group-based emotions also affect people's feelings and support for their ingroup.
• Emotion regulation processes change group-level emotions and intergroup relations.

Emotions can be experienced not only at the individual level, but also on behalf of social groups by people who belong to and identify with those groups. As outlined in Intergroup Emotions Theory, these emotions are driven by appraisals of objects or events in terms of their relevance for the group (rather than the individual). They shift depending on currently salient group memberships, and are moderated by the degree of identification with the group. Consequences of group-based emotions include treatment of outgroups (including bias and discrimination) as well as attitudes and behavior toward the ingroup (including ingroup affiliation and support). A particularly important new direction is the study of emotion regulation processes as they operate with group-based emotions, with some recent research suggesting that emotion regulation interventions may be helpful in ameliorating intractable intergroup conflicts.